Adventures of a Quantum Cowboy

Gordon Fullerton performs a final fly-by in a NASA F/A-18.

What a happy coincidence that I brought my new telephoto to work today… it happened to be Gordon Fullerton’s last flight at Dryden. Check out the blurb from the PACE office below:

Long-time Dryden research pilot and former astronaut Gordon Fullerton will fly his last NASA flight in a Dryden F/A-18 this morning, Dec. 21. Fullerton, who is retiring Dec. 31 after a more than 49-year career with NASA and the Air Force, and Dryden research pilot Jim Smolka are scheduled to take off about 9 a.m. on a 75- to 90-minute pilot proficiency formation flight with another Dryden F/A-18 and a Dryden T-38.

Fullerton and the other pilots are tentatively slated to make a low-level formation flyover of Dryden prior to landing. An announcement will be made over Dryden’s public address system about 5 minutes before the flyover occurs. Upon taxiing into the Dryden ramp, Gordon will be honored with a water-arch provided by two Fire/Rescue trucks from the Air Force Flight Test Center. All members of the Dryden family are encouraged to come out on the back ramp behind B/4800 to greet Fullerton upon his return.

A retired Air Force colonel, Fullerton was assigned to NASA’s astronaut corps in 1969 after the Air Force Manned Orbital Laboratory program to which he had been assigned was canceled. Fullerton served on the support crews for the Apollo 14, 15, 16 and 17 lunar missions, and was later assigned to one of the two flight crews that piloted the space shuttle prototype Enterprise during the Approach and Landing Test program at Dryden. He then logged some 382 hours in space when he flew on two early space shuttle missions, STS-3 on Columbia in 1982 and STS-51F on Challenger in 1985. He joined the flight crew branch at Dryden after leaving the astronaut corps in 1986.

At Dryden, Fullerton was project pilot on a number of high-profile research efforts, including the Propulsion Controlled Aircraft, the high-speed landing tests of space shuttle landing gear components installed on a modified Convair 990 jetliner, the C-140 JetStar Laminar Flow Control, F-111 Mission Adaptive Wing, F-14 Variable Sweep Flow Transition, X-29 vortex flow control, the Russian Tu-144LL supersonic transport and Dryden’s F-18 Systems Research Aircraft. He also was project pilot for a number of research efforts involving Dryden’s now-retired B-52B mothership, and piloted NASA’s DC-8 science laboratory on world-wide missions. Fullerton also served as Associate Director of Flight Operations and chief of the flight crew branch in recent years.

My online gallery has moved from ExposureManager to a Flickr Pro account. You can visit it at the link below:

http://flickr.com/photos/quantumcowboy/

This gallery contains some of my better shots sorted by category. The photos posted in the gallery are of viewing resolution only. If you would like to order prints, please contact me.

I’m still working on the format and layout of the gallery, as well as the descriptions and tags of the photos. Should have all that done in January, when I return from down under. Enjoy in the meanwhile!

I debated long and hard about which telephoto to get for my upcoming trip to New Zealand, and ended up choosing the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM. The fairly long reach and the definite added bonus of the Image Stabilizer were prime factors in making the decision.

The close runner up was the Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L USM, which besides being an Canon signature L-series white telephoto (the top of the line pro-grade), had constant aperture, superb clarity, and a non-rotating front piece (ring-type USM) as well. Surprisingly, this excellent piece of work was in a comparable price range to the 70-300 IS, which is a consumer-grade lens. The opportunity to purchase an L-series lens was difficult to pass up, but I sacrificed the superior build quality and slightly better image quality for the lighter weight, longer reach, and the IS feature, which is a huge advantage for wildlife and airshows and allows slower shutter speeds. For reference, a great debate about these lenses can be found on the Canon Digital Photography Forums. There is a nifty lens comparison tool which I used as well.

Other lenses I considered but eventually discarded before the final showdown were much less expensive:

Canon 75-300mm f/4.5-5.6 III USM (*not* recommended at all)
Canon 100-300mm f/4.5-5.6 USM (pretty decent, but the IS seduced me)
Sigma 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 APO DG Macro (neat macro feature and good optics, but LOUD and SLOW autofocus)

The last two are decent lenses and should be considered if you are relatively new to SLR photography and/or on a budget and are looking for a telephoto in this range.

I purchased from King Photo Supply in Lancaster, CA for $650.00. This is more than what I could have gotten it for online, but several factors made me buy in person:

1. I could test out the lens on my camera against other lenses… important, especially for spending this much.
2. The personal advice and information from the experienced shop guys (who mostly know me by now) is invaluable.
3. It’s good to support good locally-owned camera shops, especially if you’re in the middle of nowhere like me, because otherwise someday the big online giants will put them out of business and you’ll be stuck squinting at online pictures and trusting only user reviews for your pricey equipment.

So that’s a wrap on this post. Look out for some nice telephoto shots from New Zealand when I return in January. Happy Holidays everyone!

Snapped these with the XTi on the way home from Bakersfield. Why was I in the lovely teeming metropolis of Bakersfield you might ask? Federal court. Yay for speeding tickets on a government installation. (Talked a $291 fine and 3-day base driving suspension down to $90 and traffic school by the way).

This stretch of CA-58 connects Bakersfield to Mojave, and crosses the Tehachapi Pass through the mountains. Look for some snowy winter shots from there these next few months.

Taken with “Shade” white balance, cropped to square in PSPXI.
ISO 200 - 1/320 - f/9.0 - 70mm.

Taken in monochrome mode. UV filter only.
ISO 200 - 1/400 - f/8.0 - 105mm.

Couldn’t resist, they all turned out so well… here are a few more from the collection. Camera: Canon EOS Elan 7ne. Lens: Canon 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 USM.

I saw that the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XTi bodies had gone down in price, and so on a whim I bought one to replace the one I lost in the waterfall back in July. Definitely keeping the Elan though, film has it’s own wonderful feel.

While I was in Boston, Emily took me to the science museum (boy does she know me). Much to my photographic delight, there was a butterfly garden that we could walk around in. Check out these shots with the Elan + Kodak Gold 200.